GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5970, which has a core clock frequency of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1600 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 204 Watts (227%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5970, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 198400 (344%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 is a lot (more or less 644%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 200800 (644%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be a lot (approximately 792%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 82400 (792%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.